I say the sexual activities of post adolescent teens has not wavered much in, well, all of human history. Once we, as humans, reach sexual maturity we find ways to have sex whether by dictating social norms to ensure that those who want to have sex can (early marriages), circumventing social norms (and suffering the consequences) or changing the norm.
I can’t believe the sexual revolution of the 60s and the lowering of social barriers to promiscuity at about that time in the West had no effect. I would be amazed if the % of teenagers who are virgins did not significantly drop between 1960 and 1970.
But I guess you can search the Web for hard data as well as I can.
Well, the point about abortions is moot. People had abortions back in the 50’s as well. It was just illegal. It’s not like abortion fell out of the sky the day after Roe v. Wade went through. In fact, it was common enough in that period to inspire the debate that ultimately led to that case.
That said, the relative availability of reliable contraceptives does make such a comparison iffy. Teenagers these days can get their hands on much better contraceptives, and do so more easily.
But yes, teenagers had sex in the 50’s. In fact, teenagers always had sex. That’s why the age of consent in most states has historically floated around in the 14 to 16 range. Because that’s the age when people are deemed ready to go at it. And if drinking age teaches us anything, that means that most people have historically started going at it a couple years before then.
I’m sure that AndewT is correct. There’s a reason why it was called the sexual revolution, after all.
Also, as I pointed out in the earlier thread, there are several reasons why the relative teen birth rates in the 1950’s and the 2000’s should not be used as measures of teen promiscuity. The legalization of abortion is one reason. So is the availability of contraception. Finally, don’t forget that teenagers in the 1950’s were much more likely to be married than they are now, so of course the married ones were sexually active!
No, it’s not moot. Abortion is much more common and much more easily available now. ERGO, simple logic dictates that we cannot directly compare the teen birth rates in the 1950’s with the teen birth rate today.
Now, if you can prove that there were 1.4 million abortions being conducted each year in the 1950’s, then I’m willing to reconsider that position. You’ll have a very hard time finding any justification for that claim, though.
THAT’S NOT THE POINT. Yes, teenagers had sex. That’s not the issue under debate, though. The question is whether they were just as sexually active in the “good old days” (as BigGirl described them) as they are now. None of the evidence presented so far even remotely suggests that they were.
This seems like a red herring. The question is whether teens were as sexually active then as they are now, not whether they were as “promiscuous” or had sex outside of wedlock. Teen marriage could just as easily be an effect of teen sexuality rather than a cause.
I disagree. First of all, the original thread specifically said that teens in the 50’s “screwed around,” which implies more than just marital sex.
Second, in that same thread, Biggirl specifically said that she was “I’m just injecting a little realism into the idealized idea of ‘the good old days.’” Clearly, the discussion was about behavior which society looks askance upon, rather than sex within the confines of marriage.
Ergo, the context abundantly shows that we are talking about teen sexuality in the sense of screwing around before marriage.
Sometimes, it probably was. Still, it’s common knowledge that people got married in their teens much more often back then, pregnant or not. I myself know several older people who affirmed that to be true. Talk to some people in their 60’s and they’ll probably confirm that as well.
That’s not how I read it. The original thread was about what teens did for fun in the 40s and 50s, and Mehitabel’s comment (quoted in the OP here) was in response to “I bet they liked fucking.” Sex can be done for fun whether you’re married or not.
Well, a “shotgun wedding” was one thing I had in mind, but not the only one. If sex outside of marriage was frowned upon then more than it is now, and the biological drive to have sex was the same, then more people may have gotten married in order to have a socially-approved context for sex.
I was a teenager during the fifties. Among boys back then, the chief topics of conversation were sex and cars, usually in that order. To listen to the guys, sex was rampant. To listen to the girls, it just didn’t happen. The truth, as always, was somewhere in between. Sex did happen, and I suspect it happened just as often as it does today. I think that the typical girl from my era maybe had fewer partners than today, but I don’t know that for a fact.
Teen marriage was not unusual, at least not in Texas. I knew one guy who married at sixteen; his bride was fourteen. That was a little extreme, but not by much.
Pretty much what LouisB said. There was a fair percentage of girls that were sexually active in my Jr. High school. That was 1955/'57. Everybody assumed most boys were.
Frankly, over time I’ve been amazed by the number of young people that post on this message that aren’t sexually active.
It may seem like the dark ages to some of you, but condoms were readilly available then, and NO, you didn’t have to show proof of age to purchase them.
I think the term Sexual Revolution referrs more to the openess and ready availability of casual sex, rather than any increased levels in the number of people partaking in the joys.
I’m thinking of the grandparents of a dear childhood friend of mine, who secretly got married in the spring of their senior year of high school, just so they could have sex without feeling guilty, and then went back to living with their parents, had a “real” wedding later, and remained happily married until the husband passed away. And someday I’ll get Mom drunk enough that she’ll let slip when she lost her virginity, but I’m about 99% sure it wasn’t with her first husband on their wedding night.
My guess is that people were less casual about it, since the prevention was less reliable and the consequences far more severe, but it still happened plenty.
I’d be pretty surprised if any hard and fast statistics were available about teen sexual activity in the '60s. I just don’t believe such stats were kept then. I do have some personal anecdotes that, while not speaking of how sexually active unmarried young people were, at least seem to present evidence that some of them were. The first thing is this: my mother was 19 when she married my father. My oldest sister was born 7 and 1/2 months later. My mother maintained, to her dying day, that her first child was premature, although she weighed well over 7 lbs.! My FIL had two serious girlfriends (both in their late teens when he dated them) before meeting my MIL, to whom he’s been married for 51 years. He swears that the previous two girlfriends broke up with him because he wouldn’t have sex with them. He’s never had sex with anyone but my MIL.
My own personal thinking is that teen girls, especially, may have been less sexually active in the '50s because of the fear of getting pregnant, which, in those days, frequently led to social ostracization.
I think that yes, more teenagers are having sex younger and more often then in the 40’s and the 50"s. I think that this is because today there is not that “your a dirty, horrible person, for having sex young” kind of attitude. I think there is a difrent attitude toward sex. I heard somewhere that a survey of young students, as young as middle school felt that oral sex was LESS personal then kissing. This to me shows an interesting attitude toward sex and sexual acts.
“Teen pregnancy rates have reached histroric lows dropping 25 percent from 1990 to 199. the birth rate dropped 19 percent and the abortion rate was down 39 percent in this age group. more recent data indicate the teen birth rate has continued to drop through 2002-down 28 percent.”
Again, irrelevant. Those statistics only cover THE PAST 23 YEARS. They do not extend to the 1950’s, when abortion was illegal and far less readily available. ERGO, that objection simply has no bearing on the issue at ahnd.
Those figures are absolutely relevant, given your claim that fewer births among teens necessarily equals more abortions among teens. As the CDC’s data demonstrates, a factor other than abortion was responsible for the marked decrease in the teen birth rate from 1990 through 1999.
Point of order, JThunder - (close to) abortion-on-demand was in fact legal in New York, California, North Carolina, and Colorado in 1972, before the decision in Roe v. Wade. That’s a significant portion of the US population. Some other states allowed abortion in varying circumstances.
I’m trying to tack down the status of state abortion laws in the 1950s, but it is a misapprehension to assume that Roe v. Wade legalized abortion - instead, it leglized abortion in the states where it was then illegal.
